What you gonna do about those false rumour spreaders?
Like the false rumour of the equality of people, of the equality of the races.
It has gotten so bad that a majority of people actually believe those rumours and profile people accordingly.
When they get mugged by a Basketball American they will go out of their way to defend the attacker to satisfy the profile of equality.
Dark times indeed.
Grow up.
Oh hell no! The system has been corrupt a very long time.
Exactly.
How old are you? 12?
Probably not, ‘Grow up’ sounds more like a 15 year old pretending to be in the big boy club now.
Yes, yes, I know you are not actually 15, just emotionally stuck at about that level of maturity.
I bet you get regular emotional support through motherly, more mature women.
Anyway, the presumption of equality is a form of profiling.
Profile: White, suburban, some college education at least, basic SWPL lower oven class, very punchable looking face,…
I once heard an interview with a professional song writer who basically said “you know how you can write certain lyrics that make no sense if you analyze them, but still, everyone knows what you mean? I love that part of writing songs.”
James, obviously if the nuances are infinite and you can’t define someone until they’re all counted, then you can’t define anyone (discern them at all)!
But I think I know what you’re getting at!
One thing about psychological labels is that people notice them as patterns of behavior… Some are obvious … Like the dot matrix on those 3d pictures, and some take focus, like the 3d picture behind the dot matrix (oh! I see it now!) and sometimes it’s bullshit all around!
I actually worry quite a bit about people who say “I don’t judge people or give them labels.” It’s passive aggressive bullshit to not judge them for being dipshits while implying they are better than you…
Works great on women, but James , believe it or not, there are men in this world too!
Hey when you get an animal that is both predator and prey, honesty takes a serious hit. Corruption stems from survival instincts. Just as profiling does.
So it is justice to let a criminal go because the evidence was gathered in violation of some other laws.
Apparently that is justice in the US of A.
I’m just imagining a spouse finding out about his/her cheating significant other and then those two agree to let it go because the evidence was procured in violation of the significant other’s privacy.
That’s then the just way of how things work.
Have to agree about profiling, or let’s say a discriminating-mind, to be tied to the survival instinct. No discrimination, no agency, no life.
And in light of that I personally wouldn’t mind the not discriminating of certain people but then again their I-do-not-discriminate stance is a farce anyway because what they are advocating for is not no-discrimination but no-discrimination in accordance with certain principles which is in turn a specific kind of discriminationg again.
Imperfect laws are made by imperfect people. Evidence gathering laws are supposed to help control corruption and try to protect innocent. Cops are known to plant false evidence. Maybe they believe the person is guilty, maybe they are paid, maybe they want a promotion, maybe they are an asshole. The good cops far outnumber the bad but, you still must try to protect against the bad even at a cost.
Generally the guilty get caught again with good evidence. Hopefully.
Profiling can be done reasonably, and must be done to accomplish anything. As Ecmandu points out, if you can’t define someone at all until you know them completely, you will never know anyone or yourself. You need to use shortcuts, and that those shortcuts will occasionally be wrong does not mean that they will always be wrong or that it is always wrong to use them. They are a practical necessity.
Stop-and-frisk is a good example of a bad shorthand. A very small percentage of young black men are criminals, so a policy that takes the criteria of being a young black man to justify a pat down will do much more harm than good.
Contrast with a case where two individuals apply for a job who are equally qualified except that one has a college degree and the other doesn’t. Which is likely to be the better employee? Here, the criteria of having a college degree is likely somewhat predictive of job performance. While choosing on the basis of a college degree alone is a terrible hiring practice, given that a decision must be made on a limited set of data and in a finite time, relying on certain data to influence the outcome is rational. This is a reasonable form of profiling.
And of course reasonable forms of profiling need to be influenced by evidence and must only be as firm as the evidence supports. But within those constraints, if we know that X criteria makes a person Y percent more likely to Z, it’s reasonable to allow X to influence our decision making. And given the practical need to make decisions with a dearth of data, reasonable profiling is in fact the best response.
You parade the insidious fallacy.
The phrase “insidious fallacy” sounds like it might be another name for “slippery slope”, which is a fallacy in its own right and seems part of the argument you’re making here.
Oh really… By whom exactly?
You display the common insipid error of not knowing the difference between assessment, judgment, prejudice, and hate. That mistake is one of the most common mindset errors of the entire population throughout the world. Yet when it comes to profiling (another word you presume to understand), it is extremely relevant and a dangerous error to the entire society.
• If you were in a primarily Muslim territory wherein you are an infidel (upon sight), would you expect to be JUDGED reasonably?
• If you were in a primarily Jewish territory wherein you are a goyim (upon sight), would you expect to be JUDGED reasonably?
• If you were in a primarily Christian territory wherein you are a atheist (upon not attending church), would you expect to be JUDGED reasonably?
• If you were in a Mexican territory wherein you are a gringo (upon sight), would you expect to be JUDGED reasonably?
• If you were in a Nigerian territory wherein you are a white man (upon sight), would you expect to be JUDGED reasonably?
“When in Rome” … you are judged by the Roman standard, thus “do as the Romans do”.
• When in Greece, you are judged by the Greek standard.
• When in China, you are judged by Chinese standard.
• When in Nigeria, you are judged by Nigerian standard.
• When in Arab countries … by Arab standard.
• When in Israel, … by Israeli standard.
• And when in the USA, by USA standard.
In every territory, most of the resident people believe that they would be judged reasonably. They believe this because they make the common error of believing that most people think like they think themselves. And they also believe that they know the standard by which to escape judgment, which comes closer to being true. They inherently know that there is a means to fake your way out of judgment. So what does that tell you about being judged reasonably? Those judging you are those who fake their way out of judgment because they know the wrong words and gestures to not say or do.
Most people can’t even be properly assessed and certainly not properly judged in their own neighborhood.
Years ago, I overheard (I do a lot of overhearing) a parole officer boast on the statistics that “prove” that 80% of inmates are truly guilty (leaving 20% “proven” to be innocent). He was quite angrily proud of that “proven fact”. I had to wonder what kind of statistical testing procedure they used that would tell them what the courts couldn’t. But that kind of thinking bothers profilers.
Who are you being “reasonably” judged by? If the average person can judge you reasonably, why have courts at all? Look at the membership here, just as an example. Look at how they judge others. How often do you hear the word “troll” bandied about? How many of them even know what the word “troll” means? Do they actually understand the situation of moderators? … even of the average person whom they are always pre-judged to be? Police officers get away with murder, literally, on a regular basis, not to mention their other insidious crimes, because by newer law they get to be their own jury, despite having murdered a civilian. The whole reason is that the average citizen is not one of the “peer group” who would better understand their situation.
They make laws based upon the very notion that the average person cannot judge reasonably at all. That is the entire foundation argument behind court systems, consitutionalism, socialism, and communism.
Judgment is about hatred … pure and simple. You are not being assessed as an engineer, philosopher, psychologist, salesman, … whatever talent you might have. You are being judged by whether you do anything that someone doesn’t like or worse, believes that you should be judged for even when they have no personal concern about it (judging for sake of their guess of what is to be acceptable due to their allegiances).
Go into a psychiatrist’s office and try to come out being assessed" as anything better than “normal”. Normal is the top of their scale, the other 98% is distorted, deviant, abnormal, mal-behaviors of one type or another. Same with profilers. It is entirely about “good or bad” and almost always about how bad someone is, not how good anyone is (other than themselves).
The sole purpose of judgment is condemnation, not salvation nor talent scouting. And it is being performed most by those of less than average intelligence and certainly less than “reasonable” wisdom. You are being judged by people who have been taught to watch for key signs of reasons to hate you. And they don’t even see any problem with that.
The SPLC is a wealthy southern hate group of black lawyers. They are somewhat the counter part of the KKK. They have been consigned to teach the FBI and HSD how to profile the population. The result of which are maps of “hate groups”, almost entirely whites. Obviously that is because Blacks, Jews, Women, Socialists, Communists, and Globalists don’t hate anyone.
You are a “terrorist” if you do not go along with “USA policy” (by whoever is interpreting whatever “USA policy” might mean … but always anti-constitutional). You are an “extremist” if you express a dislike of technology. And those JUDGMENTS are being made by the FBI, NSA, and HSD through their secret surveillance, behind one way mirrors/cameras (as is their justified consigned task).
Easily 99% of the people judging, not assessing, you are not very bright and certainly not interested in any kind of “fair trial” concept. And you don’t even know upon what basis you are being judged. It is somewhat instant "pre-"judgment in the dark, “prejudice”. They all sincerely believe that asking you about your misbehavior is pointless and dangerous because you would lie anyway (“It has been statistically proven”, they tell each other).
What words did you use today that one of the many political profiling hate groups didn’t like? Which words will they not like tomorrow? Do they care as long as they keep you down?
Ah yes, that “practical necessity” … to maintain the hegemony. Exactly what is being “accomplished” by such prejudiced judgmental profiling by ignorant, unwise, half educated, completely careless, somewhat paranoid, secretive people?
Realize that you are attempting to justify condemnation and Hell. But you go right ahead. Continue to be the actual Devil’s advocate.
I judge myself all the time ( condemnation ), it makes me a better person .
What’s the point in judging a rigged game?
James, in ostensibly rejecting the claim that there is such a thing as reasonable profiling, you’ve presented ways that profiling can be unreasonable. I don’t claim that all forms of profiling are reasonable, or that all profiling that considers itself reasonable is in fact reasonable. None of that is inconsistent with the claim that profiling can be reasonable.
To begin, let’s be a little more rigorous about what we’re talking about. When I say ‘profiling’, I mean: using data about an individual unrelated or tenuously related to a target characteristic or act to predict that individual’s likelihood of having the target characteristic or performing the target act, especially for the purpose of intervening to preemptively punish the characteristic or act or to single out the individual for additional investigation. By ‘unrelated’, I mean not causally related, but not to mean that there is zero statistical correlation between the data and the target act or characteristic.
There are a lot of moving parts there. To sum up and make clear the parts, I’m going to use square brackets to make clearer my terms: profiling occurs when an [individual] presents certain [data], which is taken to be predictive of a [target] characteristic or act. But the [data] and the [target] are not causally related, so there’s nothing incoherent in the possibility of someone presenting the [data] and simultaneously not exhibiting the [targeted] characteristic or act.
I hope you’ll agree that a key aspect of profiling is that it uses [data] that is unrelated or only tenuously related to the [target] that we actually care about. Strictly, there is no logical implication from one to the other. The danger of profiling is specifically that there is nothing preventing the an individual with the specific [data] from not exhibiting the [target]. Again, to illustrate using the paradigm case: stop-and-frisk uses the [data] of age, sex, and skin color, which are unrelated to the [target] of violent criminality.
With this definition, it seems that “reasonable profiling” is just a matter of turning certain dials. First, ‘reasonable’ must mean that, though the data are unrelated causally, they are nonetheless correlated with the target. Thus, though a person could have the data in question and not be the target, having the data in question does affect the Bayesian probability that the person has the target. Moreover, the correlation is strong, in particular involving many pieces of data that together influence the likelihood of the individual being a target significantly in the positive direction. If this seems vague, it is meant to be. We’re playing with dials, so at this point I mean only to suggest that there is some degree of likelihood at which point profiling becomes reasonable.
Another important dial to be turned simultaneously is to adjust what kind of action is justified by the profiling. At the high end of the range might be a death sentence. At the low end might be a second look. Again, this is meant to be vague, to show that there is some further action that can be justified by proper Bayesian profiling.
A final significant pair of dials is something like the harms to weigh against each other, of failing to identify the target on the one hand, and misidentifying targets on the other – i.e. the harms of false negatives and false positives, respectively.
It seems difficult to argue that a profiling system is wrong that (1) relies on strongly predictive data to (2) justify a minor action, where (3) the cost of failing to identify a target is great and (4) the costs of the a false positive is low. Such a system would be reasonable.
Do we agree so far?
Carleas, when I first read your first sentence in the last post I initially interpreted it as “James you look stupid as a profiler for calling profilers stupid”. Which I thought was clever, but actually not what you meant.
James, I think you are confused …
Think of it this way…
I remember in first grade, an art teacher had us sit in a chair, with a bright light casting a shadow on the wall… Another student took construction paper and outlined our shadow, creating, a profile…
MANY things can be defined from a profile !
So I ask you this James … Because of carleas mistake of wording…
If you don’t profile profilers than what’s the point of this whole thread!!!
Seriously!!! They are just as right as you then!!
I’ll offer ecmandu’s rule #2 here…
Calculate the set of itself before arguing a point!
And your argument is that because there is an extremely narrow case in which profiling could actually work out for the better, there is nothing wrong with freely distributing it.
– typical liberal socialist. 
So when and if profilers ever become die-hard scientists, intent on accuracy, the profiling methodology might actually work well. The problem with that theory is that scientists don’t “judge”, they “assess only”, else they are not being scientists. The science version of a profiled person would be very lengthy, having to record the exact detailed circumstance and investigated intent of the offender. Quantum Mechanics is useless. Labels wouldn’t even come close.
So your version of “profiling” is somewhat a myth and theoretical possibility born out of naivety and an effort to justify the actual evil that takes place in the real world (for thousands of years). “It isn’t necessarily evil, just because it always has been.”
…by only scientists in the field walking around through Walmart, strip clubs, pubs, theaters, city parks, shopping malls,…
… Uh huh … like that is going to happen … when?
Anything done with corrupt data is worthless. It IS NOT a matter of “Maybe some of our assessments were a little inaccurate so our averaged figures might be a little off”. It is a matter of "This man said the ‘N’ word. He is a bigoted, racist, white supremacist, antisemitic terrorist. Intervention is required. He must be dealt with immediately. "
Another real life example was an event in Portland, Oregon a few years back. Small landlords were being regularly sued by HUD (House and Urban Development - a branch of the socialist federal government) for illegal prejudice. They were losing everything to larger corporations due to accusations of being prejudice against minorities. HUD had profiled each of them with the exact technique you have endorsed.
But then one day, a more true hearted man, being sued, looked into this issue. He found that the actual data involved was copy-write protected. Neither the court nor the attorneys were allowed to see the actual data. Only the “scientifically generated report” was ever presented in all of these court cases.
But being a more tenacious man, genuine of heart, he found a means to acquire a copy of the data involved in many recent cases. And it didn’t take much effort at all to clearly see that the data had been seriously mislabeled as “prejudice action” when it very clearly showed complete innocence.
The actual data was then revealed in the man’s court case. He was acquitted. The company doing the investigation was immediately fired … as a different one was hired. The rules still the same … nothing changed in the game … merely a different name.
That exact same scenario is still going on right now. And that is a very, very small portion of the overall profiling abusiveness throughout the country and the world. But it is the norm. It is not the exception by any means at all. The misuse of profiling is the very glue of the Godwannabe governances - the socialists, communists, and abrahamic religions … not to mention all of the “hate groups” doing all of the profiling.
I am talking about the real “boots on the ground” reality. You are talking about a theoretical situation wherein you have a dedicated team of trained scientists intent on ensuring the accuracy of their data, investigating each individual profile.
SLOP is the rule in Earthly endeavors. Morons carry out the minutia.
Precision is an extreme exception, usually only found in the ivory towers.
Yet the same people carrying guns seems totally unreasonable?
You declare something “wrong” when it actually causes too much harm, more harm that good. The fact that it is possible that no one will ever misuse a gun is completely irrelevant. Yet your argument is that because it is possible for a profiling system to not be misused is entirely relevant. Because it actually causes more harm tan good, it is “wrong” to distribute it.
What do you think?
And I have to ask…
What did you actually, really think they were talking about when they spoke of “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”?
Please tell me that you didn’t actually believe the “forbidden apple” or “snake in a tree” disguise.
There are many ways to “name the animals” (aka "carpenter, engineer, politician, lawyer, sailor,…) in accord with their talents. There are many “trees” (structures for mind and society) that develop from such assessing. They are all useful in one way or another. But when such assessing is based upon “Perception of Hope or Threat”, PHT (aka “Good and Evil”), the temptation (aka “serpent”) is to become a god protected forever - controlling all behavior to one’s own whim, regardless of the concerns of those suffering your reign and to become the only actually independent living entity. It is a very, very old story … for a very solid reason. The warning was not without merit.
James, let’s assume something called a naive profile … Someone who generally doesn’t understand profiling…
A man who wears dockers pants is consciously/ or subliminally attracted to the concept of spiritual “ports”. “Dockers”. Like ports on the sea, where a drop blends with the sea… This sounds insane to you, but it can be used for profiling!!!
What about the people who wear “be calm” shirts with a crown on then from British propaganda from WWII ??? Or people who wear the “obey” brand…
These people are all psychopaths!!!
An experienced profiler (through statistical analysis) can tell whether you take a shit at noon or 1oclock depending just on what you wear…
Yet here’s James declaring… It’s all stupid!!
That’s profiling too!!! The IRONY!!!